Yoruba people have the right description for every concept and idea. They have the concept of Ìwòfà àdáwó jo yá (jointly owned pawn). With this saying, they bemoan the abject fate of anything that is jointly owned. They take this further by asserting that a publicly owned Ìwòfà must always look unkempt, his head bushy, his life unwell.

The Daily Times was founded on June 6, 1925, by Richard Barrow, Adeyemo Alakija, Victor Reginald Osborne and other partners. That was 23 years before the Nigerian Tribune came to being. Daily Times was the doyen of the Nigerian press until Nigeria happened to it in 1975 when the military government of the late General Murtala Mohammed forcefully took it over for Nigeria.

When the Yoruba say “irun è kún bi irun Ìwòfà àdáwó jo yá – bushy hair like that of a jointly owned pawn)”, they are saying the subject lacks care, and needs attention. That simply tells you that, except the divine intervenes, in this clime, publicly owned ventures suffer neglect, and sickness and death.

How come Daily Times is no more, but for the past seven and half decades, the Nigerian Tribune has weathered the storm, waxing strong?

Established by the Avatar, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, on November 16, 1949, the Nigerian Tribune will be 75 years old on Saturday. It has not been a bed of roses. The strength of the newspaper is in the vision and mission of its founder, Awolowo. Note also that those who have managed the paper all these 75 years have been committed to the mission of the visioner.

At 75, Tribune has not only outlived its contemporaries but has also remained a going concern; surviving every arrow of death shot at it from different angles. Why is it so?

There is this hunters’ chant, a traditional poem, Salute to the Elephant, published in “A Selection of African Poetry” by K.E. Senanu and T. Vincent. In the poem, the poet says the Elephant is: “Ajanaku who walks with a heavy tread. /Demon who swallow palm-fruit bunches whole, even with the spiky pistil-cells.” Nothing describes the Nigerian Tribune at 75 more than these lines. The paper is the real Ajanaku, who “stands sturdy and alert, who walks slowly as if reluctantly / …Whom one sees and points towards with all one’s fingers.”

How has the Tribune managed to survive the last 75 years? The elephant stays its course, maintains its character, remains true to itself and keeps its memory intact. That is why it does not die the death of cats. Can we first understand what Nigeria is, and how the nation runs its affairs? You and I know that here, what belongs to everybody belongs to nobody. The community dog is likely to die of starvation because everyone thinks the other person has fed it. We are a nation where nobody pays attention to any commonly owned venture.

That is the singular reason why our refineries won’t work and illegal, crude, bush refineries keep mushrooming and functioning to the chagrin of the State. Our National Grid continues to collapse, and other privately owned power installations thrive. While nobody pays attention to the maintenance of our National Grid and is left to suffer epileptic feats intermittently, private solar power installations receive constant attention from their owners because it is in their interest that they survive.

Again, in Yoruba music kinesiology, the hands come first before the gyration of the body (owó ni saá jú ijó). The axiom admits that it is only when the right step is taken that a dancer can have a perfect outing at the arena.

Power supply in Nigeria, especially when the government became the major key player in that sector, has been epileptic as anyone can imagine. It is a problem that did not start today, will not end today, and has no end in sight. There is no solution in sight to ameliorate its effects on the helpless and hapless people.

Many communities in the country are used to darkness such that they don’t know when the defunct National Electrical Power Authority (NEPA), transformed to its current Abiku sibling, the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN). Generally, Nigerians are used to systemic failures in all aspects of life. We have communities which in the last one decade or more, have not experienced power supply. Those ones don’t belong to any Band, the recent, but amusing stratification of electricity users in Nigeria.

Sleep has become a rarity in our neighbourhoods because of the noise pollution from the various electricity-generating sets popularly known as generators. The seeming reprieve we have now, we owe to the high cost of fuel. Our society is the type where the citizens provide their own portable water, fix their roads, hire night guards for their security, provide electricity for themselves and still pay utility taxes to the government!

We question nothing; not even the crass inefficiency of those we elected to be our leaders. Nigerians have developed that thick skin that enables them to move on irrespective of the pain the government dishes out on a daily basis.

We have had more than 10 collapses of our National Grid this year alone. We have had three in the last two weeks! Whatever little electricity the Generating Companies (GENCOs) can generate, we have no capacity to transmit them to the central point called National Grid so that the Distribution Companies (DISCOs) can purchase and distribute to the people. The inconsequential megawatt in the National Grid is what we cannot manage optimally!

Why do we have an Abiku as our National Grid? Why does the facility collapse almost every week? Who is in charge; who has been interrogated and who has been sanctioned for the obvious laxity?

I once explained the meaning of the name of an old diviner, Ifábonmí (The Oracle does not deceive me), on this page. The full name is multiple-syllabic – Ifábomíèminabonràmi (The Oracle does not deceive me, and I will not deceive myself). That is the name I want to adopt in my observations on this matter.

Anyone may want to believe that we have genuine insurmountable problems with our National Grid. I don’t share that opinion. I know, with the hindsight of a singular experience, that whatever is wrong with our National Grid is deliberate, a result of our personal greed! The National Grid collapses at will because there is a calculated attempt put in place to satisfy the greed of some Nigerians. In essence, what we are experiencing in terms of power outages occasioned by a malfunctioning National Grid is the work of profiteering vampires whose greed has remained insatiable!

In February this year, I was in the entourage of the Minister of Power, Adedayo Adelabu, to a GENCO in Ihovbor Community, Benin City. The minister’s mission to the community was to inspect the power-generating plant located in the agrarian community.

The plant, which goes by the name, Ihovbor Power Plant or Benin Power Generating Company, is owned by the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC). It was set up in May 2013, as “an open cycle gas turbine power plant built to accommodate future Conversion to Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) configuration.”

The government-owned power plant, when fully operated, can generate 500 megawatts of power for evacuation (transmission) to the National Grid. The minister said that the plant “is a brand new one.” Unfortunately, new as the Ihovbor Power Plant is, it transmits nothing to the National Grid because its turbines are perpetually shut down for its neighbouring plant owned by some individuals to work.

I documented that visit in a piece published on this page on February 27, 2024, under the headline: “The darkness called Nigeria”. While the government plant generates 100 megawatts of its 500 megawatts capacity, the private plant generates 461 megawatts. Now, the arrangement is that for any megawatt the private plant generates which the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) cannot transmit to the National Grid, the TCN entered into a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with the private plant and pays an average of $30 million every month!

This is where the complication arises. The government shuts down its own power plant to allow a private plant to function and then goes ahead to pay a whopping sum of $30 million for megawatts that are generated but not transmitted. The private plant, to add insult to our national injury, runs on the facilities of the government-owned plant! If you ask a multi-billionaire, I know, to describe this situation, he will simply tell you it is a case of someone helping someone!

Incidentally, the NDPHC, which owns the Ihovbor Power Plant in Benin City, has nine other such plants in Omotoso, Olorunsogo, Calabar, Geregu, Omoku, Gbaron, Sapele and Enugu. All these plants, if optimally used, will generate 4,700 megawatts of power!

The questions we should ask is: How many of such government-owned plants are working? How many privately owned plants are getting $30 million PPA every month at the expense of our public plants? Who are the owners of the private plants? Who are their partners in government and out of government?

And before we think that private power generation and distribution is rocket science, I present to you the experience of the CCETC Ossiomo Power Company LTD, Benin City, which was initiated by the immediate past Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State, as an Independent Power Project (IPP). It was a fierce battle before the project saw the light of the day. The Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) management fought tooth and nail to frustrate the project.

In one of the meetings between the National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) and the Edo State Government, Obaseki practically walked the then Managing Director of the BEDC out of the Government House. Obaseki succeeded with the Private Power Project because of his tenacity of purpose. Today, all Edo State Government offices in Benin City are connected to the Ossiomo power supply and they have good stories to tell.

The example of Ossiomo is a definition of a focused government. What Obaseki demonstrated is rugged political will and the determination to make a difference and place the people above any other consideration. The same feat was replicated in Enugu a few months ago.

Why can’t we have as many Ossiomo across the nation? Why do we rely on a National Grid that is suffering from epilepsy? The answer is very clear: GREED! The National Grid needs to collapse as many times as possible so that the fat maggots of power-generating profiteers can get their monthly $30 million PPA for power generated but not transmitted.

To fix whatever problems we have with our National Grid, we need to first address and permanently fix the problem of our National Greed! What solution do I recommend? I commend the managers of our power industry for taking a tutorial from the resilience of the Nigerian Tribune, our inimitable Elephant (Ajanaku), huge as a hill, even in a crouching posture! At 75, Tribune is still waxing stronger and remains resolute, keeping fidelity with the mission and vision of its founder! When we stop treating our National Grid like the proverbial Ìwòfà àdáwó jo yá (jointly owned Ìwòfà – pawn), Nigerians will begin to experience uninterrupted power supply. That is hugely doable!

By Tony Eluemunor

I know that many would wish that the Biafran war tragedies should be swept into deep history and should no longer be discussed. My take on that is stoutly and lustily this: “I prefer to be accused of nastiness than to join in the national pastime of consigning events of a few years ago into prehistory”. Chinua Achebe wrote that in the preface of his book of essays, Morning Yet On Creation Day, published in 1975, to explain why he had to include essays on the Biafran war in that book instead of pretending that the war never took place. Here and now, I second that “motion”.

Tatalo Alamu, the respected columnist, in his offering titled Ninety Bouquets For Jack Gowon published in the Nation newspaper of November 3, 2024, poured encomiums on Gen. Yakubu Gowon, “as an exemplary Nigerian patriot, a soldier-statesman and shining moral exemplar for many of his compatriots”. Tatalo Alamu, whether in his first essayist incarnation as Prof Adebayo Williams or in this present one, is not just an engaging writer but a deep thinker.

The reader is my witness that I have left all alone his other incarnation when he was Larrie Williams but he had to drop that name because of Larry Williams the dramatist. Even when you disagree with Tatalo Alamu’s reasoning, you would still strike gold in his glittering renditions, his energetic turn of phrase that appears to make his words hop off the essay to embrace the reader…like a lover. That reminds me of the incomparable respect Chinweizu, Onwuchekwa Jemie and Ihechukwu Madubuike paid the poet, Christopher Okigbo in Towards the Decolonization of African Literature: “The early Okigbo wrote nonsense…but captivating nonsense”. Then they raised a din that has refused to subside when in comparison, they added that Wole Soyinka (the poet as against the playwright) wrote “abject nonsense”.

May we please begin from the two concluding sentences of Tatalo Alamu’s 1, 200-word essay: “The rotund vultures are still hovering in the air. When are we going to get proper closure in this land?”

Answer: A proper closure would never come “in this land” until those who defaced Nigeria’s history, harmed the lives and destinies of individuals and sections of the country, making it terribly difficult to unify Nigeria, have owned up to their evil roles, admit their mistakes, deliberate ills or iniquities to show that they recognize the sheer humanity of those harmed by their past actions. But did Gen. Gowon own up to any mistake in his 90th birthday interview? No!

Chuks Iloegbunam has spent over 30 years researching into the two 1966 coups, the Nigerian-Biafran war and their aftermaths, so he is an authority on such matters. He pointed out the untruths in Gowon’s statements in his October 26, 2024, Vanguard article which Tatalo Alamu referenced.

Chuks went straight to the point: “Dear General Yakubu Gowon, you spoke to the Daily Trust on Saturday, October 19, 2024. You celebrated revisionism and claimed things that were not backed by evidence. This open letter is to point out and correct your horrendous amputations of contemporary Nigerian history”. Tatalo Alamu romped into the arena against Chuks Iloegbunam as though he was mounted on the chariot of Achilles, drawn by the Greek hero’s fleet-footed immortal horses, “Xanthos and Balios”, as his essay’s passionately runaway cadence bore witness. Unfortunately, instead of countering any point Chuks raised against Gowon, he began to manufacture excuses for Gowon. Chuks said that Gowon was no super-patriot because he had announced “on Monday, August 1, 1966, that there was no basis for Nigerian unity”, thus rendering his claim in 2024 “My duty and profession at that time demanded to make sure that we kept the country together” baseless. Tatalo Alamu owned up that he listened to that broadcast, and “the initial push of the victorious coupists was the breakup of the country until they were cautioned by western concerns”.

That leads to the question; could Gowon have been among the July 1966 “victorious coupists?” Chuks had reminded readers of the strange 1966 telephone conversation between Captain T. Y. Danjuma who informed Gowon that he was set to arrest Ajuiyi Ironsi, the Supreme Commander, as recounted in Danjuma’s biography and Gowon, Ironsi’s Chief of Staff asked him “can you do it”? Nothing more! And Gowon, who could not hurt a fly did not even say, “please let there be no bloodshed”. Oh, elsewhere, the columnist had excoriated Aguiyi-Ironsi for surrounding himself with an “ethnic cabal”, though Danjuma, the Northerner who arrested him also headed his personal security team, but he never used such words for Gowon and the North … but he asserted Gowon ran a Northern show because the victorious coupists were Northerners. Haba, Tatalo Alamu, haba! Who quelled the January 1966 coup, Easterners or Northerners? If Eastern officers did, then that coup would not have been an Igbo one.

Chuks Iloegbunam wrote: This is Colonel Njoku: “Having got the battalion in motion, I turned to the General Officer Commanding to spell out the task he had for us. The General Officer Commanding is not normally the person to give orders directly to a battalion. It should come through the proper channel, i.e. via Brigade Headquarters. In that emergency situation, the General Officer Commanding was acting in order. …The General Officer Commanding asked for paper and a pen. These, I provided. He wrote down the key points (KPs) and very important personalities (VIPs) to which troops were to be sent for protection.

These included the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC), the Parliament House, Post and Telecommunications (P&T), the Prime Minister, the Inspector General (IG), the Brigade Commander – No 11 Thompson Avenue, etc. In addition, he listed some of the officers he wanted apprehended. These included Major Ifeajuna, Captain Oji and Lieutenant Nwokocha…My Order Group (‘O Gp’) was ready in my room. I had moved apart to prepare my orders leaving him and Jack behind, although all of us were still in my office. As soon as I was ready, I moved to my conference room. They both followed me. The adjutant called all to attention. I stood them at ease and went straight into my orders. At the end, the General Officer Commanding said nothing but Jack said a few words emphasising what I had already told the officers. “B” Company under the command of Captain Hans Anagho, the Cameroonian, was ordered to move to the Parliament building, Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) and Police Headquarters. Jack (Gowon) decided to accompany them… (See Hilary M. Njoku, A Tragedy Without Heroes: The Nigeria-Biafra War. Fourth Dimension Publishers, Enugu, 1987, page 19”.

Tatalo’s non-reply: “It will, however, be stretching it too far to insinuate that Gowon did not contribute anything significant to quelling the majors’ uprising on that night of murder and mayhem. Although he had no troops under his direct command having only arrived in the country the night before, he was a figure of calm authority behind the scene as he rallied the troops and made sure that the idea of military disruption of the political process was a professional abomination”. Pray, how did Tatalo Alamu arrive at this conclusion? When did undocumented personal whims become the basis of history?

Chuks showed that Gowon reneged on the Aburi Accord, and ensured that Nigeria would not backtrack from the war precipice. He detailed war crimes the Nigerian Air Force committed against Biafra, including deliberate church, school and market bombings and over 50 years later, the Gowon with the storied heart of a church minister still claimed that he obeyed the Geneva Convention. Surprisingly, Chuks didn’t dwell on the Asaba massacre, the worst act of genocide committed in that war, and I hold it against him.

Tatalo did, but he only added insult to injury; he had dined with two Asaba people who remembered “with eerie graphicness about the indignities visited on young women (read mass rape), the man’s attention was focused on the actual pogrom which he survived as a boy by lying still amidst the huge pile of the dead and dying. Later, he had helped sympathizers carry the body of Chief Okogwu to his adjoining homestead for proper dressing before interment. That incidentally was the father of a former First Lady of Nigeria”.

Gowon, Tatalo Alamu’s hero, remained Nigeria’s Head of State for seven years after that Asaba massacre but questioned/punished no one for it. Okogwu, whose murder and burial the Asaba man remembered vividly decades later, had actually just finished reading the welcome address to the Federal troops…and he was savagely executed. The lady recounted the mass rape and sex slavery Asaba women suffered under angel Gowon but that elicited no condemnation from Tatalo Alamu. All he could ask was “When are we going to get proper closure in this land?” If that showed his impatience with the injured former Biafrans and/or Asaba people for failing to FORGET their injuries, then Tatalo Alamu has just committed the second Asaba massacre by his startling insensitivity.

The Omu whose burial he so memorably attended suffered anguish during the Asaba massacre. Actually, her spirit may have died during the pogrom but she kept breathing like a person in coma…for she could never have forgotten how her “children” were massacred with careless abandon. Chinua Achebe was right after all when he wrote that “Wisdom does not come from what happened but the lessons people learn from events because much could happen to a stone without making the stone any wiser”. Even Gen Gowon and Tatalo Alamu have refused to learn the right lessons from the Biafran War, Africa’s nastiest and most brutal civil war. The brutality and irrational killings of that Civil War visited all the towns and villages in the Anioma area of Delta state, steeped in an orgy of wanton savagery. Apart from Asaba, Oko Anara suffered a massive attack from the Federal troops who also killed over 400 people one night at Ishiagu.

In my home town of Ubulu-Uku, Lt. Nwajei (Ngozi Nwajei’s father) and Captain Ugbechie (the journalist Kenneth Ugbechie’s uncle) and two other officers of the Nigerian Army were shot at point-blank range by their former colleagues. Mr. Paul Okocha (Nkem Okocha’s father) was murdered when the Federal troops chanced upon him at Onicha-Ugbo and his Peugeot car was seized; he had gone to drop off a brother or sister-in-law. Many civilians died from the senseless shelling which heralded the Federal troop’s entrance into the town. Mr. Tony Chiejine of the Dangote Group’s Media Office was being led to safety when a shell exploded and shredded his loving sister who was holding his hand. What nightmare!

Actually, the two coups of 1966, the Abujri Accord, the Nigerian Civil War and the subsequent tragedies that took place in Biafra have not been fully discussed. The roles played by all the commanders in the American Civil War or the two World Wars have been detailed out by both the key actors and respectable historians. All the battles have been looked into, the key players’ roles have been detailed out. The mistakes made as well as the strategic schemes of the outstanding commanders have been documented. The criminal killings are not hidden. So, it is not only infuriating that the Nigerian Head of State during that sad war in which the Federal troops committed the sort of atrocities that devastated Asaba, and who punished no single actor in that sordid scene from hell would be telling us over fifty years later that he even knew about the Geneva Convention. Then why didn’t he enforce real obedience on his soldiers?

The white colonialists doubted our sheer humanity and treated us as subhuman. So, too, do ethnic champions who pretend to be national leaders doubt the sheer humanity of certain sections of the country. Equally guilty are the columnists who applaud them as inspired statesmen offer insipid excuses for their inexcusable failures. Leaders must be made to account for their actions or Nigeria will never advance.

That university professors and respected newspaper columnists would wave side the failing Iloegbunam recorded against Gowon is one reason Nigeria remains totally disunited and steeped deep in the dark ages. And oh, thank you Chuks Iloegbunam; damn the heretical revisionists or cretins who would dare argue that your historic service to Nigeria on the Biafran tragedy is not noble.